China Begins Disinfecting Cash To Contain Coronavirus Outbreak
CHINA DISINFECTING CASH – As the coronavirus outbreaks continued to run rampant in China, the country’s central bank has imposed a new method of containing the virus – deep cleaning infected cash.
According to an article from CNN, the People’s Bank of China announced that their aim to contain the spread on Saturday.
There is still much to know about the new coronavirus, COVID-19. This is why buildings in affected areas are regularly disinfecting commonly touched surfaces such as elevator buttons and door handles.
Now, all Chinese banks must now disinfect their cash with ultraviolet light with high temperatures. Following this, they must then store it for seven to fourteen days before releasing it to the public.
Meanwhile, cash from high-risk infection areas such as hospitals and wet markets are being “specially treated” and sent back to the central bank instead of being circulated.
As per the article, the central bank’s Guangzhou branch may destroy the high-risk cash instead of disinfecting them.
To compensate for the supply of cash, the bank said it would issue large amounts of new, uninfected cash. In January, the bank allocated 4 billion yuan (about $573.5 million) in new banknotes to Wuhan.
Other measures to contain the spread are cutting physical cash transfers between hard-hit areas such as the Hubei province. However, it’s still unclear how “infected” the cash in China is.
Disease transmission linked to money is rare, in addition, no major disease outbreaks have started from it. But, with new cases reported every day, China is not taking any chances.
In relation, a shop keeper in Wuhan went viral after uploading a video of him boiling his money clean.
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